The Workspace of a Passionate Web Developer: David Castellà Fornós

David Castellà Fornós is a passionate and motivated web developer from Barcelona, Spain. With more than seven years as an Elektor reader and over two decades of web development experience, David is showing us his interesting workspace, where he is able to work on a variety of projects, from electronics and coding to audio production and robotics. 

What is your current occupation?
 
David Castellà Fornós: I started working as a web developer about 20 years ago. Now I have become a specialist in SharePoint, Microsoft’s tool for building Intranets. After reading the influential book “Makers” by Chris Anderson, I had an epiphany. Since then, I’ve been trying to remember something from my telecommunications degree so I can be able to design embedded electronic devices the way it is supposed to be done. My objective is to somehow integrate these skills into my career as an independent software developer.
 
I am inspired by people like Émilie Gillet, who after working for tech companies as a software engineer founded Mutable Instruments, one of the most respected synth-maker companies of the last decades in the musical instrument industry.


 
How long have you been reading Elektor?
 
David: I remember poring over Elektor magazines as a teenager at a friend’s house, whose father was an electronics aficionado. It is not easy to access the Spanish version when you live in a small town before the Internet era. Then, in the 90s, I built a couple of Elektor audio projects for listening to music in my car and doing university exercises. I have recently rediscovered the magazine thanks to the books it has also edited and the special issue with Arduino.
 
What type of space do you have, and how do you use it?
 
David: I like to call it simply “lab” because it has measurement instruments, but you can see that a Festool TC-3000 rolling cart is part of the workspace. It was a purchase from an auto repair shop that used it as a sanding center. I think everything fits well modularly and the cart can be easily moved if you want to open the vertical window.
 
Also, there is also a Festool MW-1000 compact mobile workshop at the next room corner to do small woodworking tasks. So, if I get up from the desk, I’m immediately on a woodworking/machinist workbench. Or I can use the same chair in both areas, as it’s a stool-type one with long-travel adjustable height.
 
Where is this space located, and how long have you had it?
 
David: The lab is in a corner of my living room. The flat where I live has only two bedrooms, and the one I don’t sleep in is already filled with a PC workstation, audio production studio equipment and storage for other tools. That's also where most of the electronic components are stored in stackable drawers. Not next to the lab, but close. Stock inventory is managed with a free subscription to partsbox.com, which is a tool that I can highly recommend.
 
I did it during the pandemic lockdown and had the lab ready at the end of 2021. So now I've been using it for a year, for about a few times per week.
 
How often do you use your electronics-related space?

David: Having an in-house lab with everything in place and at hand is very convenient. Miles away from having to lay out all your tools and components on the dining room table every time you need to test or build something. Especially if you don’t know how many days it will take.
 
But my bottleneck to being more productive now is my other regular activities. I spend more time in the lab than watching movies or playing sports, but less than working on SharePoint for my contractors; that's three days a week or so.
  When designing and setting up your workspace, what were your goals and requirements?
 
David: The most critical requirement was to leverage the very limited available space. It was where I used to have the ironing board to get an idea. For this situation, the solution is usually to use a structure as tall as possible. And after asking a few lab furniture manufacturers for quotes and because my second most important requirement was a limited budget, I decided to design the custom wall cabinet myself. I sketched it with Autodesk Fusion 360 and made it out of 15 mm Finnish birch plywood. The rectangular workspace area now measures just 1.75 x 1.10 meters and is cozy yet comfortable. One of the two tabletops (the main one) is linoleum laminated plywood, which I really like as a pleasant tactile work surface. The budget was reduced by recycling an old table that I found lying in the garbage and is now the base structure.
 
Please describe your technical interests. What kinds of tasks do you work on in your workspace? Why do you prioritize such projects?
 
David: I was fascinated when I heard The Beatles' “A hard day’s night” album as a child on my parent’s Dual CS 601 turntable. Since then, I have tried to understand all the magic involved. Although electric guitars are the axes of Rock legends, I believe that musical synths express all the relevant achievements that audio electronics has accomplished in the last 70 years.
 
When I discovered the Eurorack community of synth builders, they represented to me all the characteristics I had been looking for: a well-defined standard, people open to collaboration, and a playground for experimenting with the boundaries of both analog and digital audio electronics. So, I'm interested in playing this game.

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Do you enjoy learning about where other engineers and makers work on electronics projects? Take a look at these electronics workspaces.

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What kind of equipment and tools do you have in your workspace, and how do you store them?
 
David: In the center of the cabinet, there is an Agilent oscilloscope (more on this later). Under the scope, also in a centered position and tilted 30 degrees, I provided 4 vertical units of 19-inch rack space to house Eurorack modules. It admits the two common module sizes (one row for 1U and one row for 3U).
 
Behind the rack space, a bus board to power the modules, which instead of feeding energy from a standard power supply, connects with bananas to a Powerbox PB3100 triple output linear power supply. This way the modules and prototypes can be powered at the same time, and I always see how much current they are all drawing. For soldering, I use an Ersa I-CON PICO and an Amscope SE400-Z microscope for working with SMD components. Sometimes the Waldmann SNL-319 magnifier lamp is also useful.
 
The right rolling cart holds a Proxxon MF-70 mini milling machine that I converted to be CNC-controlled with an old ThinkPad laptop. The cart also offers spaces to integrate a Festool CTL-SYS dust extractor for the milling jobs and a Fluke 8846A multimeter.
 
What do you consider to be your most important or valued piece of equipment or tool? And why?
 
David: I especially appreciate the Agilent 54622D oscilloscope. The reason I chose this old (2002) CRT type over a smaller, more modern TFT-display oscilloscope, as well as being a good capable device, was that it reminds me of the Hewlett-Packard ones I learned within the University laboratories. This specific model was called “Mixed Signal Oscilloscope” because it has an input port for debugging 16 digital signals along with the 2 usual analog channels.

And the story with it is that I bought it from an Israeli eBay seller, and it arrived totally destroyed (dozens of bits) after its trip. The seller had a bunch of units and agreed to send me a second one. Now I have some spare parts. Like the bag that hangs on the dark left side of the overall photo.
 
Is there anything special or unique about your space? What makes this feature so special or important?
 
David: The cabinet, thanks to cross-lap joints, can support quite a heavy content. It is only fixed to the wall at two points but is also supported at the bottom on extruded aluminum profiles. To do this, I cut three pieces from a Festool replacement profile that is part of their workshop tables. Three pieces because they fit with a service door when it has to be opened to give access to internal cable management. This is best understood by looking at the detail photo. They're not cheap, but with their unique shape, the profiles also offer multiple ways to fasten things above the work surface.
  Are you planning anything new for your space? Perhaps you are planning to purchase new equipment or tools? Or maybe you are going to build a new workbench or install improved lighting?
 
David: I made the CNC controller using an Arduino with Grbl firmware, the free “Universal Gcode Sender” software, an OEM power supply, and three motor drivers. It works, but I think that it can be more reliable and want to be able to control it without a computer. Therefore, I bought a more professional OpenBuilds kit which is now waiting to be put into operation.
 
What is your favorite electronics-related project that you have ever completed, and what did you learn from it?
 
David: I’ve built a couple of units from an open-source and open-hardware project called “Westlicht Performer” (one unit appears in the detail photo). The module is a live performance oriented step sequencer for Eurorack kindly shared on GitHub by Simon Kallweit. The designer decided not to take it into production and the ones that are being sold on second-hand portals, made by people like me, are the only possible way to buy one.
 
Technically, it’s driven by an ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller. It outputs 8 tracks of CV/gate analog control signals and can be programmed from a MIDI keyboard. It has USB and TRS MIDI ports, a microSD card slot for saving projects and a user interface with an encoder, OLED graphic display and 37 buttons. With this project, I have learned to solder at the SMD level, embedded development, new tools, design patterns, ...
  Are you currently working on an electronics or programming project?
 
David: My goal right now is to learn by prototyping any Eurorack module to fill the gaps in the Eurorack test environment that I integrated into the lab. I'm testing different options to have a nice user interface and defining the first use cases. My idea is to use an Arduino compatible platform named “Teensy”, which is a Cortex M7 powered MCU board with a focus on audio tasks. I also want to delve deeper into CNC and CAD techniques to be able to manufacture my own panels and PCBs for prototyping.
 
Do you have a dream project or something you'd love to tackle?
 
David: I suspect that, like many other audio enthusiasts, my dream project would be to design an audio mixing console. Compact in size, with not many channels, with the entire analog signal path and some modern digital control. I know nowadays, this can be achieved with very good available ADCs and DACs along with a DSP, but I believe the former is the correct “best of both worlds” strategy. Also, it would allow me to learn more about most of the commonplaces that interest me in audio electronics.
 
Lastly, do you have any advice for other engineers or makers who are considering putting together a workspace?
 
David: A very wise and universal carpentry proverb that I think I learned while building my lab: “Measure twice and cut once”.  

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